BeerAdvocate's sixth annual Extreme Beer Fest is coming up in February. Along with the fest, Dogfish Head and the BeerAdvocate will be brewing a new beer:

Speaking of raising the bar, the Alström Brothers are scheduled to brew a limited release beer on December 9 with Sam Calagione and Lead Brewer Bryan Selders at the original Dogfish Head brewpub on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

BeerAdvocate recently had a contest to name the beer. Users were urged to email their best name. The entries were widdled down to the top ten. Now the BeerAdvocate users are voting on those top ten names.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Saturday was the Twitter Taste LIVE Beer!: Introduction to Trappist Ales. It went well I guess. I enjoyed it. It was interesting to share ideas and impressions of beer across the country, live. Though, I do not know if Twitter is the best forum for such an event. It took place as if we were chatting, but my other "twitter followers" who were not participating were getting inundated with hundreds of, to them, incoherent ramblings about beer, possibly. And I don't have that many followers. AND I was not really saying all that much, imagine the followers of the people who were chiming in every half second.

Was it perfect? No. But within minutes of the Twitter Taste Live starting I was emailing Jay about how this needs to be integrated into each month's edition of The Session. It was, as I said, like being at a beer fest, the crowd moving around you. It is not like a quiet seat in a pub not like the lecture hall feel of an organized tasting. It was not exquisite like a food and beer pairing. All of these experiences are valid and they are different. Sitting in the family rec room on the computer as kids run around and sports are on the TV will not replicate them all. But it will mirror some aspects of those things and create new ways of thinking about what conviviality means in relation to craft beer.

There is also the anti-social aspect of using computers as a replacement for meeting up with people face to face. While Twitter will never replace the need to have actual encounters in person, it can help get you "out" there when traveling around just isn't in your interests for that point in time. I'm not advocating that we all turn into cave dwellers and drink "alone", but for those times that when all of your "friends" that you want to mingle with are scattered across the globe, Twitter at least gives you a chance to touch base and share a virtual drink.

One of my favorite things to do when at a bar or brewpub is to slide a glass around the table saying "ooh, try this!!" So to have a time when, across many different locations, people are all discussing the same bottle of beer, there are opportunities for great insights. I got great suggestions for foods to pair with the beer, other beers that I would enjoy if I was enjoying that particular beer.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Shiner is 100! To celebrate their anniversary they’ve released this stark bier, or dopplebock. It looks good, smells ok, but the flavor just ain’t there. I say go ahead and try it. I mean come on 100 years, that is pretty cool. Just don’t expect it to touch Ayinger’s Celebrator.

Monday, January 12, 2009

I should have waited until after dinner to stop by Flying Saucer, who were celebrating their first year anniversary.

The place was a madhouse. Packed. Flying Saucer sucks when it's packed. It's actually a pretty nice place when it's a bit emptier. It seems to only fill up with loud, obnoxious drunks. Maybe I am just getting old. It does make it hard to enjoy a pint. I am sure the crowd would have been the same or worse after dinner, but they might of actually had the beers I wanted on offer. The "special" beers of the night were being tapped on an hourly schedule. I was really looking forward to having the 2007 SN Bigfoot. Alas, the barley wine was not on until 9pm, three hours from the current time. The bartender said the Piraat IPA would be on in ten minutes. I had a SN Anniversary Ale ($1!) to keep me busy until then. My wife, pregnant, had a lemonade. Sorry Sofia. Could not find a seat to save our lives. Time passed. Went for the Piraat. Nope. Not until 7pm. Barbar Winter Bok was actually the latest beer to open up. Had never had it, so I went for it. Decent, it had a very distinct hard candy flavor which I could not place (does that make sense?). It became to cloying, but I managed to tough it out and finish my chalice. By this time we were more than ready to head out for quieter settings.

We did not hear any of the music. Over the entire night they had some interesting beers. The Anniversary ale was a stupendous deal. Sure it was crowded, but all in all a good event. If it were a touch warmer there probably would have been more people outside and I would not be sounding like such an old curmudgeon.

I had heard about this on the BA boards, but had not seen it confirmed anywhere. Here it is from the horse's mouth. No word on Austin.

SAINT ARNOLD IS CHANGING DISTRIBUTORS NEXT MONTH IN MUCH OF THE STATE Glazer's, our distributor for the past 10 years, has decided to sell their beer distribution business in much of Texas. Thus, we will have new distributors come February 1 in the greater Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, San Antonio and Corpus Christi areas. For most of Houston and San Antonio it will be Silver Eagle. In Dallas/Fort Worth, it will be Ben E. Keith. There may be something of a learning curve at first since this is the first time Silver Eagle has distributed a beer that did not have any connection to a certain large brewery in St. Louis. But we are excited as we believe that this will be a great opportunity for us to continue our growth.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

There is a decent article and interactive feature on the NY Times website right now. I do have to complain about one thing Eric Asimov writes:

But in the last decade or so, brewers have given barrels another look. Inspired by winemakers, whiskey producers and even lambic brewers, who never stopped using barrels, these brewers see oak barrels not as storage vessels but as tools that can make beer more complex and interesting.

I think that bit is less reportage and more assumption. The way he uses the word "even" when tossing in lambic brewers. The largest inspiration for barrel aging came from lambic brewers, period. Do I have actual verification for this? Well no, I am just a two bit blogger, not a writer for the bleeding NYT. But you know it and I know it.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Harpoon's flagship beer, IPA (India Pale Ale), will be available on draft starting in January. The IPA is has a floral aroma with a medium body and an aggressive, clean hop finish. Their popular wheat beer, UFO Hefeweizen, will roll out on draft in February. Both the IPA and UFO Hefeweizen will be available in packages and Harpoon's Irish red ale spring seasonal Harpoon Celtic Ale will be available on draft in March.